


saudade

by paladumb



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, sometimes i make myself sad, tw for implied step-parental physical abuse, yall this was written in the span of like two hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladumb/pseuds/paladumb
Summary: saudade, sɐwˈðaðɨ. n.: a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one lovesit's not just people that have memories; charles xavier feels thoughts in everything.





	saudade

**Author's Note:**

> hi, 
> 
> i like purple prose way too much
> 
> thanks for reading

people leave marks.

they’re not visible, not tangible, but charles xavier feels the remnants of thoughts and memories in walls and sheets, within the pages of books and coins. exchanging money passes a rush of memories of the people that had held it, once, and charles learns to soak everything up quickly. he swallows the sadness of others in the glasses of scotch he orders at bars, absolute heartbreak and the welling of fury lingering on his lips long after the liquid bronze swirls down his throat.

westchester itself holds memories of blood and alcohol in the floorboards, and charles can feel the old resentment soaking through the soles of his shoes when he steps foot in his old house. it’s cold, impersonal, and beside him, raven shivers. 

charles often wonders if thoughts imprinted in items can leave an impression on non-telepaths as well. the empty old house is cold, the yellow sunlight streaming through the windows faded. it’s a distinctly unwelcoming atmosphere, and he wonders how the young mutants he has led into these angry halls can feel its emotion. raven spent much of her childhood upstairs, learning to control her appearance, and charles knows that setting foot on the upstairs floors inspires the greatest sense of solitude he’s ever known.

the grounds outside are open, free; charles was happy here, when he was younger, and he leads erik around the paths of the garden, hearing his and raven’s ringing laughter sound from the flowers. erik is more relaxed here than in the house, calm hovering around his skin like an aura. inside the house, there was only tightly-threaded tenseness, erik’s hands shaking for metal at his sides.

the sun has sunk to touch the horizon by the time charles sits, alone, at the bottom of the staircase. he fell down these stairs often as a child, but these are also the stairs he traversed with a baseball bat before he met raven, the banister they swiveled down when no one was looking. 

charles closes his eyes and presses his hands to the floor. finds all the happy memories he has of this house, of warmth and light. most of them are him and raven, her smile, him lifting her up and swinging her around after he announced his acceptance to bard college, and then oxford. he digs deeper - swirling rush of anger, pain, blood and beatings from his stepfather and brother, that bitch little kid, i’ll kick his face in - pushing raven away, curled fists, and then - before - brian xavier, his warm smile and the feeling of an incredible child in his arms. “brian. our son is going to change the world,” and a kiss on the cheek. before that, the excitement of preparing charles’ nursery, the staff alight with excitement because if mr. and mrs. xavier are having a baby, everyone is having a baby, the excited rush of feet, laughter. charles can feel all of it, the swirling of the sun around the earth as he rushes through the memories in the walls and the chandeliers and the floors, bringing everything wonderful and beautiful to the forefront and wrapping all the bad in the good.

he collapses, his arms giving out as he falls back to the dusty old carpet, which sends up a plume that makes him sneeze. the sunlight is high on the wall now, red-orange across the chandelier, sending millions of little rainbows scattered across the wood. the dust in the air doesn’t look as lonely anymore.

“charles?”

he feels erik before he sees him, knows his steel core from all the time they spent on the road together, feels the foreign brightness of life within all the dusty memories wrapped in the carbon of the walls.

“hello, erik,” charles says from his place on the floor. “are you all moved in to your room?”

“i am,” erik says. “are you alright?”

“yes, i think so,” charles nods, slowly standing and brushing himself off. “my apologies.”

“what were you doing?” erik asks.

charles looks up at the chandelier. he’s honestly not sure why he’s never explained to anyone how thoughts are stored in things, how he can feel histories through his fingertips. “meditating,” he says. “being back here, it… brings back memories.”

erik nods and leaves it at that. 

-

the house grows throughout the week. two days in and the happiness of this, their makeshift family, is seeping into the very air of the house. the excitement is palpable, to charles; he can almost taste the sharp, sweet joy of acceptance and unity that rolls through the air like dust bunnies, little cyclones of delight. 

on the contrary, erik is sour, bitter, always looking towards a sharper future. it scrapes charles’ mouth any time he’s near, and the acidic taste of vomit isn’t analogical when he holds a gun to his best friend’s forehead. the contrast makes him choke, the volumes of pain circling through erik and the love that’s pouring off of charles in waves and hitting the walls of his shields just before they can reach erik. 

“i can’t,” charles says, lowering the gun, and erik pulses with bitter relief.

-

charles returns to the happiness of westchester wheelchair-bound and with no erik and no raven. everything this house has, all of the happiness that is emanating from its walls is all erik and raven and family. feeling the pulsing that used to give charles such strength just makes him double over in pain now, and with moira’s memories wiped and hank, alex, and sean escorting her back to the CIA, charles is alone.

he screams, then, physical and mental agony cutting through his bones like the coin through his head and the house shudders, turmoil coursing through the walls and the memories of last week scrambling with the happy memories charles pulled up from the foundation and those he pushed down. the sunlight turns cold, the warmth dissipates, and the house stills to tragedy.

he wheels himself around the ground floor. what he really needs is an elevator but it’s not like he could just create one. erik could. 

at just a thought of erik, the air stills and charles feels the phantom touch of lips. erik swelled with memories and the house accepted all of them, and charles clamps his mind closed. 

_ don’t touch him _ . he almost speaks out loud.

he can toss the thoughts contained inside the framework of this house like a salad, but there are smaller things that are utterly unerasable. a few bent spoons, a tea kettle with a dent in the side, the imprint of fingers into the table. they positively reek of erik, of his power.

charles wheels away and sits by the window in his study, staring at the satellite dish, traces of power like streaks of gold. 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://gravitvs.tumblr.com)


End file.
